Tales in Verse for Young People :: :: University of Virginia Library

“From the woods and the summer fields he is gone,
With his merry laugh and his sunny brow!
The garden looks dim and the house is lone,
Where, dearest mother, is he wandering now?”

“He is gone in a brighter home to dwell,
With beautiful creatures all love and joy,
Where death comes not, and no sad farewell
With its parting tone can his bliss annoy.
He is gone to a happier home than ours,
Beneath the light of more radiant skies,
And his path is bright with more lovely flowers
Than in the sweet summer e'er met thine eyes.

196

“Thou wilt meet him no more in the fields of earth,
For the pleasant days of his life are o'er,
And the joyful peals of his laughing mirth
Will ring from our evening hearth no more.
Thou wilt see him no more as he used to be;
Thou wilt sleep by his side no more at night;
Nor with thee again will he bend the knee,
And his evening prayer with thine unite!”

“Mother, his cheeks are cold and pale,
His eyes are closed, yet he does not sleep,
For he wakens not at my earnest call;—
Is it death, dear mother—that rest so deep?”

“My child, his sleep is the sleep of death;
Yet we may not deem it a darkened lot,
And his spirit more pure than the breezes' breath
May be wandering near, though we know it not!
And wish him not back, thou lonely child,
Though we misshis love and his pleasant voice—
Thou wilt soon to thy loss be reconciled,
And again in the summer woods rejoice.

197

“He dwells where the fields can never fade,
Where night comes not, nor day is dim;
Where the glory of God is the sun, and the shade
Is the shadowing wing of the cherubim.
And oh! in yon bright and happy land,
Thou again mayst his sunny beauty see,
And hear his voice, 'mid a joyful band,
From the shades of death as it welcomes thee!”